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Digg looking to aggregate what's hot on Twitter and Facebook

December 30, 2009 | 2:51
pm

Digg founder Kevin Rose dropped a morsel of information about a major overhaul to the social news website that's been a long time coming (at least seven months, which is like four years in Internet time).

The 5-year-old site (that's in people years) currently aggregates a list of interesting links around the Web as voted on by its users.

But it may take aggregation one step further. Instead of limiting the pool to input from its own users, Rose indicated that Digg may also begin taking into account link-sharing data from other social networks.

"We have to take a look at all the different sources of information and kind of just act as Switzerland," Rose said in the most recent This Week in Tech podcast. "If we're seeing a trend on Twitter, we can map that to the best stories on Digg. And if there's other things happening on Facebook and other networks, we want to be able to pull all that in."

TechCrunch has been speculating about what a "real-time Digg" might look like since May. It could resemble something like Techmeme or Tweetmeme, which both ping sites or pull from RSS feed data in addition to Twitter buzz. Add Facebook to the mix, and you could have an even grander idea of what's hot at any given time on the Web.

Rose added that the renovation was being helped by Digg's acquisition of the entrepreneur's other start-up, WeFollow -- a directory of Twitter users.

"We see ourselves as like a neutral Switzerland where we'll be able to sit there and pull in all different types of data and information from all around the Web," Rose said.

Rose said the changes could start appearing within the next few months.

The site has transformed in small ways over the last year, adding things like Trends for surfacing more timely news and an ad platform that could be a crucial revenue source. But the real-time aggregator couldn't come at a better time, as ComScore reports that traffic to Digg is beginning to wane.